Compassion is not for the faint-hearted
Compassion is not a journey for the faint-hearted. True compassion comes with the experience of experiencing pain and hurt and fear ourselves. Compassion enables us to feel what it feels to be in that bed, to be that person knowing they are dying now. But how can we be truly compassionate if we have not explored our own responses to the very things we wish we could run away from?
In shamanism, which is an earth-based, nature-based approach to life and healing, it is said that the true shaman, the true healer, needs to have had some sort of deep wounding in order to be able to help heal the wounds of others. I feel that this is also true of compassion.
Each of us in our own way has our own wounding. Renowned palliative care and buddhist hospice director, Frank Ostaseski says, "Pain is what invites compassion to manifest. If someone says to you, "I'm afraid," and you haven't really understood for yourself what it's like to be afraid - if you haven't done your homework, when you say, "I understand," those you are caring for will sniff out your sentimentality and your insincerity, and they'll yell out, "Bullshit!".
"Pain is what invites compassion to manifest.” - Frank Ostaseski
Breathing out with compassion means that we also have to breathe in to our own pain. Life’s experiences, the beauty and the ugliness of them are what can lead us to compassion.
Compassion helps us recognise the humanity in us all. It helps us accept failure rather than always be reaching for heroics. This is hard because we deep down want to be able to be the hero, save the day, make the difference but our actions. But compassion can show us that action is not the medicine the other needs.
Compassion shows us the power of the beginner’s mind, of ‘don’t know mind’. No hero. We can comprehend another’s journey, but we know that we cannot possibly have all their answers for them. But in this, we can be there for them. Compassion lets us be their for them, in their own experience. No judgement, just an infinite heart. An infinite heart, even in the pain.
Compassion is love. Love sitting by the bedside. Love in all parts of the journey. The love that comes even with anger and hurting. Love is ‘radical connectedness’ and through that connectedness comes compassion. We are all in this together.
When my mother was dying I learned a lot about pain. Her pain. My pain. And to be honest it wasn’t pretty. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to ride in and help her in bodacious ways. I know now that it was that heroic desire that created so much of my suffering and grief. It was a tough lesson to learn. But now as the years pass it is that very pain and all that suffering that has taught me the power of loving emptiness. The power of not having all the answers, but of simply being there. This emptiness doesn’t mean we don’t care. Not at all. In fact this emptiness is full of caring. It is full of connection and it creates space for others to reveal their truths if they so wish.
I wish I knew then, what I know to be true now.
The experience of being at the bedside, of showing up for people as they near the end of life is never easy, but it can be made easier by consciously stepping into the space of radical connectedness, where we don’t reach for heroics. We don’t need to try to find answers. The less we try to find answers for everything, the more compassion and connection grows.
Sometimes, just sitting in silence with someone is the most compassionate thing you can do.
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This is a lovely talk on compassion by Frank Ostaseski at the Zen Centre for Contemplative Care.